Alternate
by Rashaka
Summary: An AU Naruto has lived a sheltered life, safe from pain and danger. ...But as the story always goes, no one can remain ignorant forever.
1. Nothing’s Gonna Change My World

Well, I've started another Naruto WIP without finishing my last one. Please don't hate me for my inconsistant muse.

This chapter's title comes to you from "Across The Universe" by The Beatles, which I listened to while writing.

Summary: An AU Naruto has lived a sheltered life, safe from pain and danger. But soon reality will hit and Naruto's fragile world will start to falter, because that's how the story always goes.

* * *

**Alternate**

_Nothing's Gonna Change My World_

- 1 -

At night he would wander in the forest on the hill that loomed above their cottage. When the wind brushed the back of his neck with chilled fingers he was reminded of his frail humanity, and it was a reminder he required every night.

At first the nightmares had been too busy and confusing for his childish mind to comprehend, and they only occurred rarely—a few times a year, at best—his mother hugging him fiercely each time he woke screaming. With his head resting on her shoulder and his sniffles soaking her nightclothes, she'd tell him stories filled with candy and soft blankets and happy laughter. And then he'd sleep again, and everything would be all right.

But the lie that everything would be all right loses its power with every growing year of life, and Uzumaki Naruto was no different from other children in that respect. As time went on his nightmares became clearer and more regular. By thirteen he dreamed every night of demons, and he no longer believed everything would be okay. After each nightmare he'd sneak out of the cottage and into the starry darkness of the countryside, looking for anything to keep his mind busy. Or anything to save his slowly diminishing sanity.

Naruto became accustomed to less sleep a night than most people, and though his father said it left him with a permanently dazed look, he didn't let it affect his demeanor too much. He was a rambunctious boy, supplying his lost energy with cat-naps stolen during his lessons—which made him a far from scholarly boy. He was fond of the sporting games his fellow students played, and fancied himself growing up to be a professional racer in one of the towns or cities. He was the best swimmer and the best runner in his small world of the local village children (barely two dozen, each one a different age it seemed), though his hand-eye coordination was often found lacking. His mother and father applauded his successes but wasted no time in shoving him toward books in between every race or game; they seemed to believe his talent and love for the purely kinetic were things he'd "grow out of any day now." When he once joked that at least being an athlete was better than wanting to be a shinobi like the other children, the look his parents shared was alien and unsettling.

Besides the constant plague of nightmares and parents who wanted him to be better schooled, Naruto's life was simple. And it was only in the dead of night, after the smell a burning carcass filled his nostrils and the twitching hand of a dead child loomed in his vision, that Naruto sought solitude in nature. In those moments he hated to be around people, his family most of all. Every face he saw became a dying face from his nightmares, so it was easier just to look at trees instead.

For all his nightly terrors, there were many things in life Naruto never questioned. He never pondered what it meant that he didn't get sick, or how the most thrill-seeking child in the village never broken any bones while falling from trees or tumbling down hillsides. He never thought much about the "good-luck tattoo" his parents had given him as an infant—in a "rare moment of superstitious passion, for which we apologize darling"—except declare to his friends that having a tattoo made him cooler than them. The thing Naruto thought about least of all in his life as it had been so far (a small life in a small village at the edge of the small fiefdom called Wave Country) was the idea that he was anything more or less than what he'd always believed himself to be: the son of two respectable cloth-makers with a bright and hopeful world waiting in his future.

But we all know that ignorance is bliss, don't we? And we all know, though Naruto himself may not, that nightmares aren't born of nothing. So we will not be surprised when Naruto's fragile world starts to falter and tremble, because that's how the story always goes. All we can do is hope for the best for him, and pray that he is strong enough to face the truth when it comes. For it _was_ coming, sooner than Naruto ever could have imagined.


	2. I Let On Like I Was A Little Deaf

Chapter 2. Title from "On/Off" by Snow Patrol.

* * *

_I Let On Like I Was A Little Deaf_

- 2 -

Naruto lay face-down under a tree trunk, various bits of nature poking him in the stomach and the ground cool and damp beneath him. The fallen tree was a mammoth sized redwood, easily nine feet across, and provided total cover from visibility. Hidden in a crevice between the mossy ground and the dead tree was a blond boy of thirteen years. A thin slice of light allowed him to see from underneath the massive trunk to watch the feet of children go by. He was waiting patiently for the chosen child to come walking past, after which Naruto planned to scramble out and make a run for base before he got tagged. Under most circumstances Naruto was not a patient child, but hide and seek was different. Hide and seek was the ultimate game of showing how clever one could be _and_ how fast one could run. Naruto would endure a cramped space patiently, knowing it meant upholding his 2 year record of never being caught and tagged.

After waiting under the tree for what Naruto guessed to be about 5 or 6 minutes, he heard a rustling sound, and crouched lower into the darkness. Before his eyes three pair of feet landed, though Naruto couldn't tell from where. Had they jumped from the trees? Not many people could get into the upper branches of redwoods. He squinted, vision sharpening. They wore boots, all the same, all well-worn and dirty.

_Ninjas!_

Naruto almost gasped, but caught himself. His body went stiff, and he listened as they began to converse. The one farthest from Naruto spoke first, her voice gravelly and rough, but distinctly feminine. The next speaker, male, sounded younger, a few years older than Naruto at best.

"This is it. The coast and the village proper are less than half a mile south east of our position."

"That sounds right. I can already smell the ocean. And my hair's starting to curl."

"Are you two ready?" This one, a mere three feet from Naruto's motionless and terrified position, sounded somewhere between the other two in age, also male. His coolly authoritative tone, exactly how Naruto always imagined a ninja would sound, sent a shiver of excitement through Naruto. He knew he should be scared—they might kill him if they found him. But that didn't seem to matter in the face of the simple fact that ninjas were_ here_, in _their_ tiny fishing village. None of his neighbors could afford to hire ninjas, so they had to want something the village had.

"Yes."

"Just say the word."

"Good. One more time: we've seen now how close the enemy is, but nothing's changed as far as we're concerned. We enter the village, get the container, bring the guardians along if necessary, and get out. We stay in that village no longer than two hours. If forced to split up, whoever has the container heads straight for Leaf territory, and doesn't stop till inside the walls."

"Right."

"Right."

"Let's go."

All of a sudden their feet were gone, and the forest was quiet again. Naruto let out a breath, and closed his eyes in relief. Closing his eyes didn't make the shivers stop, however. Ninjas, there were _ninjas_ heading toward his village. And they wanted something, possibly were going to take it by force. They were Leaf nin.

Like most citizens of Wave Country, Naruto could tell you that his village was about equal distance between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Mist territory, though of course only ninjas themselves actually knew the locations. What it meant that Leaf Nin were here Naruto didn't know. Ninjas passed through Wave Country often, especially when escorting caravans to the take to the coast, but his village was off the main trade routes and ninjas were rarely seen. Naruto had never seen one in person till this day.

Naruto frowned and pulled his body cautiously out from the crevice. He got to his feet and tried to brush some of the dirt and twigs from his clothes and hair. None of the other children seemed to be around anymore. Naruto began to run toward home, adrenaline and curiosity surging through his veins.


	3. Something Ugly This Way Comes

Chapter title from "Black Black Heart" by David Usher.

* * *

_Something Ugly This Way Comes_

- 3 -

The three ninjas could have broken into the little home a thousand different ways, but in the end they knocked on the front door. It saved time and confusion and didn't immediately put the people inside on edge.

When the oblivious woman of the house opened the front door, Leaf jounin Umuino Iruka and his team were waiting for her.

"No…"

"Uzumaki Kana?"

"No. Please."

"We've come to take the boy back to Leaf."

Her husband, Haru, came to stand beside his wife, looking with horror from the face of one ninja to the next. "Please. This is our home—he is our son!"

"Did you forget your job? You are merely his keepers. It's time for him to return. We can take you with us, but the boy goes. There is no use arguing it. His well being and the thing inside of him are the only things that matter here. It is imperative that he returns to the safety of Leaf as soon as possible."

"But, why now? After all these years?"

"Just start packing. Take whatever you can carry on your back, nothing more. I'll explain while you prepare. You have 15 minutes."

"Yes."

---

Three blocks from their home and a million miles away, Naruto stopped like a rock in the center of the dirt road. His breaths came in and out in deep but even gasps, and his legs ached. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

The man in Naruto's path was bizarrely dressed and vaguely threatening. He wore sandals—he wasn't one of the ninjas from the forest. A huge peasant hat sheltered him from the sun, and a black cloak swamped his body. The man neither spoke nor moved. To fill the silence Naruto grasped for words.

"Who are you? Why are you blocking me? I—I have to go!"

"Uzumaki Naruto?" the man asked in a deadened voice..

"Who wants to know?" he snapped back. It was the wrong question to ask. Before his eyes could see it coming the man's had already lifted him by the throat with one hand. Panicking, the boy clawed at the stranglehold with his own much weaker hands, feet kicking and flailing to find the ground again.

With insulting calmness the stranger pulled up Naruto's shirt to examine his stomach. Wrapped in his own confusion and horror, Naruto didn't notice. He was focused on gasping for what he believed might be his last dribbles of air and trying vainly to kick his attacker in the face.

_I'm dying I'm breathe dying he's going to kill me I can't breathe he's going to_

The arm that held him high in the air jerked wildly, and Naruto felt his body fall as if it were a foreign experience, happening to someone else. He tumbled to his knees on the road, coughing and hacking. Strong arms surrounded him and yanked him swiftly backward. He opened his eyes to spotty vision. Before him two men and two women faced the stranger, taking turns striking at him in pairs. Three of his rescuers were in ninja uniforms, but the fourth was achingly familiar: a older woman with a mess of beautiful braids in her hair.

Naruto turned his head to look into the eyes of the man that held him close and steadfast.

"Father?" he whispered, before fainting entirely.


End file.
